The Rise of Dominionism

By Joan Bokaer http://theocracywatch.org/

The late Rousas Rushdoony had a vision for the United States and the world that was very extreme, he wrote some 30 books and founded the Christian Reconstruction Movement. Rushdooney’s goal was to replace the U.S. Constitution with the harsh legal code of the Old Testament. Rushdoony wrote in the Independent Republic in 1964 “Christianity and Democracy are inevitably enemies.” In his Institutes for Biblical Law Rushdooney calls on Christ’s elect people to “…subdue all things and all nations to Christ and His law-word.”

Christian Reconstructionists advocate the death penalty for gay people, abortionists, adulterers, blasphemers – the list even extends to incorrigible teenagers, witches, and those who worship “false Gods.” Rushdoony and leaders of the Christian Reconstruction movement are so extreme that many people monitoring the Religious Right don’t take them seriously. Rushdoony’s son-in-law, Gary North is founder of the Institute for Christian Economics and a prolific Christian Reconstruction writer. He said, around the time of Rushdoony’s death, “Rushdoony’s writings are the source of many of the core ideas of the New Christian Right’s political activism.”

Rob Boston is Gary North’s polar opposite. He writes for Church and State magazine, a publication of American’s United for Separation of Church and State. Boston said something very similar to Gary North: “Although Reconstructionism may seem so far out as to be easily dismissed, the philosophy has in fact provided the intellectual basis for much of the Religious Right’s thinking and political activism. Stripped of its more extreme features, watered-down versions of Reconstructionism are the driving force behind groups like the Christian Coalition…”

Examples of this influence arrive to us in figures like Marvin Olasky, an elder in the Redeemer Presbyterian Church, a Church that embraces a Christian Reconstruction worldview. Olasky had a profound influence on George W. Bush when he was Governor Bush of Texas. Olasky was a close advisor to the Governor on his program of faith-based initiatives. He wrote a book in 2000 called Compassionate Conservatism, and George W. Bush wrote the forward. The book is simply written and very moving. Olasky takes his son Daniel on a trip to the most impoverished places in the country, and they meet those unsung heroes who have dedicated their lives to helping the most destitute of people. You feel, reading the book that Olasky is a very warm and caring person and also a great father. He also writes beautifully.

It’s important to keep in mind that followers of Christian Reconstructionism are not bad people. There are many kind, caring decent people who believe deeply in what they are doing, they just believe that modern society should go back to the harsh legal code of the Old Testament. In his book Olasky doesn’t see any problem with the government funding charities that proselytize. He’s not concerned about poor, vulnerable people having to embrace a certain faith in order to receive help.

Olasky’s role as advisor to Governor Bush demonstrates the influence of a Christian Deconstructionist on the President of the United States. Professor William Martin, Chair of the Department of Sociology at Rice University conducted interviews with more than 100 leaders of the Religious Right including many Christian Deconstructionists. He wrote With God on Our Side, which was a companion piece to a PBS documentary of the same name. In his book Professor Martin describes a Reconstructed America. He explains that: The federal government would recede into the background. Churches would assume responsibility for welfare and education. And the U.S. Constitution would conform to Biblical Law.

There is a lot more to their agenda. They would relegate women to a subservient role. They fiercely oppose any form of gun control. (Notice that the ban on assault weapons expired. An extension of the ban was never even brought to the floor for a vote.) They also, passionately oppose regulations on business. Those regulations protect the environment, they protect worker safety, and public health and they advocate a much more frequent use of the death penalty.

Author Kevin Phillips, in his book American Dynasty, points out that two of the President’s spiritual advisors, the Reverends Jack Hayford and Anthony T. Evans are adherents of dominion theology. Phillips uses the term “Dominion Theology” interchangeably with Christian Reconstructionism, but I’m going to use the term as referring to a watered-down form of Christian Reconstructionism. Dominion theology shares many of the same goals, but perhaps not as punitive. Dominion theology is not based in any particular religious denomination and its followers come from all denominations or nondenominational churches. Sociologist Sara Diamond, who is credited with first recognizing dominion as a political goal, defines it this way: “Christians are mandated to gradually occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns.”

I began to get interested in dominion theology when I read America’s Providential History. It is a popular textbook in Christian schools and the Christian home school movement and teaches history from the perspective of Dominion Theology. America’s Providential History views the world from A “biblical worldview.” The most powerful legislator in Congress, Tom DeLay, R-TX and House Majority Leader also embraces a Biblical Worldview: "He [God] is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am. He is training me.”

" Our aim," according to television preacher Pat Robertson speaking at a banquet in 1984, "Our aim is to gain dominion over society." I was on a speaking tour of Iowa in 1986 when I received a memo from Robertson’s political organization. The first sentence read, “Rule the world for God.” There’s dominion theology in a nutshell. “Rule the world for God.” A dominionist organization based in Pittsburg, PA, the National Reform Association, states in their Purpose and mission statement:

1. Jesus Christ is Lord in all aspects of life, including civil government … 2. The civil ruler is to be a servant of God, he derives his authority from God …” This mission statement is based on Romans in the New Testament: “It [government] is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.”

When reading the Bible, you can pick and choose which passages to emphasize, and that will influence your worldview. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls it “cherry picking the Bible.” The New York Times published an article contrasting these two images of Christ. On the left you see the gentle, loving Christ painted in 1941, and he’s next to Christ the avenger painted this year. The Christ of Dominion Theology tends to be an avenger. Bill Thomson, the Christian Coalition’s national field director told a crowd at a big Coalition gathering in October that "leftist" foes should be destroyed, saying, “You’re going to run over them. Get around them; run over the top of them, destroy them - whatever you need to do so that God's word is the word that is being practiced in Congress, town halls and state legislatures. That’s your job.”

The Reverend Tim LaHaye is one of the gurus of the movement and he’s written many best sellers waging all-out war on that great evil - secular humanism. His wildly popular Left Behind series have sold more than 62 million copies. Glorious Appearing is the latest book in a series, which describes the moment when Christ returns to earth. LaHaye’s Christ does horrible things to non-believers, their eyes melt, their flesh dissolves and their tongues disintegrate. Reverend LaHaye’s Christ shows no mercy for non-believers. The term ”non-believers” refers to all people, including Christians, who don’t share LaHaye’s ideology.

An article appeared in First Things, a Journal of Religion and Public Life that discusses the role of government as God’s avenger. "Government...derives its moral authority from God. It is the minister of God with powers to "avenge" to "execute wrath" including even wrath by the sword.” Who was the author of that article? Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. This article was about the death penalty. Scalia wrote, “Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral.”

Dominion Theologians emphasize the Gospel of Matthew from the New Testament where Christ tells his disciples “Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations.” This section of Matthew is called, “The Great Commission”. The Great Commission has come up in speeches to audiences who appreciate its significance, such as the Religious Broadcasters Association: “Broadcasting is more than a job for you. It is a great commission.” That speech to the Religious Broadcaster’s convention was made by our President. When speaking to Cardinals, Bishops and Catholic Leaders in the East Room of the White House, he said, “All of you are part of the … ‘great commission.’“

George Grant is a Dominionist author and educator. He was Executive Director of Coral Ridge Ministries for many years. He wrote in The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action. “Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. It is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish.”

There’s a major roadblock for those wanting to take dominion over the U.S. government – the U.S. Constitution. The man considered to be father of the constitution, James Madison, wrote, "Strongly guarded...is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.“ Another founding father, Thomas Jefferson, went on to become this country’s third President. He used the metaphor “wall of separation between church and state” to explain the meaning of the First Amendment. In order for dominionists to fulfill their great commission Jefferson’s “wall” must come down, and they are working hard at it. There have been some outrageous bills introduced into Congress this past year, but the Constitution Restoration Act takes the prize.

The Constitution Restoration Act was introduced in both Houses of Congress on February 11, 2004. It includes the acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law. This is important, because God is never mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. The Framers of the Constitution wrote a secular document, or a godless constitution as scholars call it. So the acknowledgement that God is the sovereign source of law is a big departure from the intentions of our founders.

The Constitution Restoration Act threatens with “impeachment and conviction” any judge who dares to uphold church-state separation. This has to be one of the most shocking pieces of legislation introduced in a long time. The bill has 39 cosponsors, and they represent the true, hard- core dominionists in Congress. One of the Senate co-sponsors of the bill is Zell Miller, D-GA. You may remember Zell Miller as the Democrat who spoke at the Republican convention. Leaders like Zell Miller represent more than a highly polarized Congress they reflect a highly polarized society. And the polarization is not only between rich and poor, nor is it between religious and non-religious, it’s between those who support a separation of Church and State and those who don’t. Many religious leaders strongly support a separation of church and state. The schism in this country is between those who support the secular Constitution that the Framers gave us, and those who are trying to write God into it. The schism is between those who support tolerance and a diversity of beliefs, and those who believe there is only one truth, and they have a god-given mandate to impose that truth on the rest of the country. And the schism exists among people of faith, even within the same denominations. “The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States is a Christian nation.” On the subject of separation of church and state, the Texas GOP Platform “… pledges to exert its influence to … dispel the ‘myth’ of the separation of church and state.”

House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay said at a Congressional luncheon, “I don’t believe there is a separation of church and state,” and Supreme Court Justice Scalia attacked the principle at a religious freedom day rally. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has an interesting take on the subject. He wrote an opinion concerning the pledge of allegiance in which he said that the first amendment does not apply to the states. In other words, Utah could be an official Mormon State, and Alabama an official Baptist state. If the First Amendment doesn’t apply to the states, where does it apply?

The goal of dismantling the federal government is not original. Some extreme conservatives have been trying to do it for years, however they have never got very far with that goal. What’s different about Dominionism? Dominionism wants to transfer many of the responsibilities of the federal government to the churches. The Texas GOP Party Platform calls for: “downsizing the federal government.” They explain by saying, “We support the abolition of. . . the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; the Office of the Surgeon General; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, Commerce, and Labor. We also call for the de-funding or abolition of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Public Broadcasting System.” A number of these agencies protect American citizens – they protect the environment, worker health, public safety, and they protect consumers from fraud. The Department of Energy oversees nuclear weapons facilities. Imagine eliminating oversight of nuclear weapons.

But we will stay focused on the two agencies that provide programs for those least able to help themselves. Those are the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services. These two agencies provide critical services for the poor. If these two departments are abolished, who will help those least able to help themselves? According to America’s Providential History, “Scripture makes it clear that God is the provider, not the state.” That sentence describes President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative -- God is the provider, not the state. Not only is President Bush shifting the responsibility for welfare to religious institutions, he’s also shifting the responsibility for education by fighting for school vouchers. Vouchers use taxpayer dollars to fund religious schools’ tuition.

Jerry Falwell wrote around the time that the Moral Majority was forming, “I hope to live to see the day when . . . we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.” From the Texas Republican Party Platform: “We call for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education and the prohibition of the transfer of any of its functions to any other federal agency.” That’s pretty strong language. Not only would the Department of Education be abolished, but its functions cannot be transferred to another agency.

The primary tool for dismantling the federal government, are tax cuts. As everyone knows, tax cuts are one of Bush’s signature issues. Some economists believe the tax cuts have stimulated the economy, and maybe that’s what they’re really about. But it’s curious that these tax cuts, which mostly benefit the top 1% of the country are so important at a time when the United States is fighting not one, but two expensive wars and experiencing record deficits. And it’s especially curious that the President has been trying to make them permanent.

Let’s look at what America’s Providential History says about taxes. It claims that most taxes are unbiblical. Income tax is “idolatry,” property tax is “theft,” and inheritance taxes are simply not allowed in the Bible. The Texas Republican Party doesn’t just want tax cuts. It “urges the IRS be abolished." Dennis Hastert, R-Ill, is speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He just published an autobiography, in which he, too, advocates abolishing the IRS.

America’s Providential History claims that the most Biblical tax is a flat tax – where everyone pays the same percentage of their income in taxes, placing the greatest burden on the poor. Dennis Hastert is calling for a flat-tax. The Texas GOP Platform calls for eliminating the: income tax, inheritance tax, gift tax, capital gains tax, corporate income tax, payroll tax, and property tax.” Notice what’s missing? A sales tax. And America’s Providential History doesn’t single out sales tax as unbiblical. Do you think it’s coincidence that the Speaker of the House is calling for a national sales tax? Such a tax again places the greatest burden on the poor. It also burdens our cities and counties, which rely heavily on that tax. Not only is the speaker of the House calling for a national sales tax, our President said at a campaign stop in Niceville, Florida, “a national sales tax was an idea worth considering.”

Justice James Leon Holmes was appointed to a Federal Court in Arkansas on July 6, 2004. He wrote, "Christianity transcends the political order and cannot be subordinated to the political order.” This is a definition of Biblical Law. The Bible has supremacy over the Constitution. This view of the law has an interesting take on women. Often quoted is a passage from Ephesians of the New Testament: "Wives, submit to your own husband as to the lord, for the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church." According to Biblical Law, then, the woman should be subordinate to man. Justice Holmes wrote: "the woman is to place herself under the authority of the man."

Dominionists view homosexuality as a criminal activity. From the Texas GOP Platform: "We oppose the legalization of sodomy." The key words here are “oppose” and “legalization.” This movement does not want to just ban gay marriage. They want to make gay relationships illegal. In other words, homosexuality should be a crime. Senator Rick Santorum told an Associated Press reporter his views on homosexuality and the law. Santorum is a rising star in his party. He’s only in his second term, yet he has risen to the #3 spot in the Republican Party. Senator Santorum, talking about the Texas anti-sodomy laws which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in June, 2003, said: “If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex in your own home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery.”

If homosexuals and adulterers don’t have the right to consensual sex in their own homes, then they are criminals. Criminals go to prison. In this interview Santorum sounds like a Christian Deconstructionist – wanting to criminalize both homosexuality and adultery. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution about adultery, yet President Clinton was impeached. He was charged for lying under oath, but the impeachment proceedings began seven months before he ever testified. President Clinton’s impeachment was not about lying under oath, it was about enforcing Biblical Law. Most disturbing about Clinton’s impeachment was that only five Republicans in the House voted against it. There are many more than five moderate Republicans in the House. This vote demonstrates the ability of dominionists to win support for their bills whether or not their colleagues agree with them. The President didn’t violate the United States Constitution. He sinned against one of the Ten Commandments and the Ten Commandments are the foundation of Biblical Law.

There is a crusade taking place in this country to place the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Placing the Ten Commandments in public buildings has great symbolic value. It represents the supremacy of the Bible over the Constitution. This 2581 pound monument of the Ten Commandments was placed in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court. The federal courts ruled that the monument violated the principle of separation of church and state and ordered it removed. While the media had a field day with what they called “Roy’s Rock,” how many people knew about the Hostettler Amendment? John Hostettler, is a Republican from Indiana. He authored an amendment that ruled that no federal dollars could be used to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court. The bill was meaningless in one sense – the monument was removed – but it was a way of affirming biblical law. The Hostettler Amendment passed, it actually passed, on July 23, 2003, by a vote of 260 to 161. These numbers are not trivial. This vote demonstrates that Dominionism in the House of Representatives goes far beyond the most visible leaders such as Tom DeLay and it goes beyond the President of the United States.

This vote doesn’t mean 260 members of the House of Representatives are dominionists – they probably don’t even know what that term means -- but it does demonstrate the ability of dominionist legislators to win support for their bills. This same Congressman, Hostettler, got another bill passed, a year later, almost to the day. He authored The Marriage Protection Act, which passed the House this past summer - on July 22 by a vote of 233 to 194. The bill would block federal courts from considering constitutional issues arising from gay-marriage cases. This bill is not about one’s feelings about gay marriage; it’s about denying a group of people access to the courts.

There are a total of 434 members of the House – 228 Republicans, 205 Democrats and 1 independent who votes with the Democrats. Those who voted for the bill: 208 Republicans, 24 Democrats. Those who voted against the bill, 15 Republicans and 179 Democrats (including the independent). 8 members didn’t vote – 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats. This vote is about a group of people imposing their biblical worldview on the rest of the country. An overwhelming majority of Republicans and a small handful of Democrats in the House support or are willing to go along with the dominionist agenda, while an overwhelming number of Democrats with a small handful of Republicans oppose it.

President Bush has been actively campaigning to promote a dominionist agenda. He advocates an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. He proposes actually changing the U.S. Constitution so it discriminates against a group of people. A southern Baptist minister, Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, said in the PBS Documentary “The Jesus Factor,” that he hopes the President’s faith gives him sustenance, but that “No elected political leader has a right to
try and use public office to advance his or her particular faith tradition.” Dr. Gaddy is head of a clergy-led organization, the Interfaith Alliance is made up of clergy who oppose the Religious Right and support a separation
of church and state.

So how did we get here? We’re going to begin this history in 1964; the year Barry Goldwater lost his bid for President on the Republican ticket. Barry Goldwater has nothing to do with the Religious Right. He’s just your good old fashion conservative. He’s spoken out strongly against religious extremism in the Republican Party. But a group of Republican strategists who had worked on Goldwater’s 1964 campaign decided they needed to expand the base of the Republican Party, which was too narrow. One of the people who had worked on Goldwater’s campaign, was Republican strategist Paul Weyrich. He joined with other Republican strategists to form the New Right.

In 1973 Weyrich founded the Heritage Foundation, a think tank to promote the ideas of the New Right. Weyrich wanted to expand the base of the Republican Party, so he proposed targeting members of fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches. Not all members of these churches support dominionism and probably haven’t even heard of it, but those were the groups targeted by these political strategists.

In 1979 Weyrich, in a discussion with Jerry Falwell came up with the term “Moral Majority” which became a major organization with Jerry Falwell at the helm. The Moral Majority registered millions of new voters to the Republican Party in 1980, which is curious – because many of those voters didn’t match the socio-economic profile of Republicans. The Party represented mostly the interests of the very wealthy, along with white segregationists in the south. People tend to vote their socio-economic interests. So how do you get people to vote against their own interests? Weyrich said in a speech in 1980, "We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the gospel in a political context." Those two sentences are the seeds of Dominionism – Christianizing America in a political context.

This brings us to television preacher Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition. You may remember that Pat Robertson ran for President in 1988 in the Republican primaries. He lost, but he beat Vice President George Bush (the father) in the Iowa caucuses. How did he do that? He decided to take over the Republican Party from the bottom up. His organization worked precinct by precinct to take over the party leadership at the local level. Christian Coalition’s Executive Director, Ralph Reed said, “We think the Lord is going to give us this nation back one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time, and one state at a time.”

One of their tactics was to tie up meetings for hours until people left. Traditional Republicans got tired and went home. Once people left, Roberson’s supporters appointed themselves leaders and made key decisions. Since this method worked in Iowa, the Christian Coalition used the same tactic in several other states in the early nineties. Republican State Party Platforms began to get pretty interesting in 1992. The Republican Party of Washington State in 1992 outlawed witchcraft and yoga classes. Robertson said to the Denver Post in 1992, "We want...as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians...“

To get their candidates elected Reed and Robertson taught them to use stealth: avoid publicity, stay out of debates, and work below the radar screen. Reed said to the Los Angeles Times, “It’s like guerilla warfare… It’s better to move quietly, with stealth, under the cover of night.” While their candidates stayed out of the limelight, Christian Coalition campaigned on their behalf exclusively in fundamentalist, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. They passed out Voter Guides in those churches. Here’s Pat Robertson reading his voter guide. The Guides are very skewed and distorted, but have the appearance of neutrality. For example, a Voter Guide claimed that Democratic Oklahoma State Senator David Herbert supported giving minors access to pornographic materials in libraries, meaning he didn’t support the Coalition’s ban on books.

President Bush is said to support "federal funding for faith-based charitable organizations," while Democrat Kerry is listed as having "no response." In fact, Kerry announced several weeks ago that he supports faith-based funding as long as constitutional safeguards are observed. By election time in 1994 Christian Coalition had distributed 40 million Voter’s Guides in more than 100,000 churches nationwide. That year Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Time magazine credited the Christian Coalition with giving the Republicans these successes and called Ralph Reed “The Right Hand of God.”

Bruce Bartlett, was a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, he also worked for the Heritage Foundation. He was quoted by Ron Suskind in a New York Times Magazine article as saying: ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' They just don’t get it. There will not be a civil war, because it has already been fought and won. A stealth war has been going on for the past twenty-five years. Traditional Republicans have been trying since the nineties to take back their party, but they are outmaneuvered, outflanked, and mostly outnumbered. The only war left to fight is the war for Democracy, and that will be won when moderates take a good look at who controls their party and stop allowing the dominionists to hide behind them.

Where is Ralph Reed today? He is a top official of the Bush-Cheney campaign, using the same tactics he did as director of Christian Coalition. According to the Atlantic Monthly: “Reed has moved from doing God’s work to doing George W. Bush’s.” Ralph Reed said that he received his political training at meetings of an organization called The Council for National Policy. ABC news reported “Vast Right Wing Cabal? Meet the most powerful group you’ve never heard of.” That’s because they have been meeting in strictest secrecy since 1981. The Reverend Tim LaHaye was the first President of the Council for National Policy. The Council brings together hard-core religious leaders with far-right politicians such as Jesse Helms, and Washington insiders. It also includes the biggest financial backers of extreme right-wing causes and major leaders of anti-tax groups. These people plan and carry out the political strategies of the dominionist movement.

George W. Bush kicked off his candidacy for President in 1999 by meeting with the Council for National Policy.
They must have decided he was one of them, because leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell marshaled massive resources to support him. Bush met privately with the Council again this summer, just before the Republican Convention and again the two leaders are supporting him with great enthusiasm. Falwell told a recent meeting of the Christian Coalition that their movement now controls the Republican Party. Pat Robertson based his work on two words: Voter apathy. He wrote in 1990, “With the apathy that exists today, a well organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree.” Voter apathy has worked well for the dominionists. But that
is changing now. There has bee a tremendous surge in political activism, and it’s very important that we not
lose the momentum.

Something else that has worked well for dominionists is voter ignorance. The media, even the liberal press has had a real blind spot to the rise of Dominionism in government. Thankfully there are now many, many wonderful organizations working to wake up the public to the rise of radical religious extremism in government. Specifically, there is a small, volunteer organization that has discovered that it’s possible to reach millions of people thanks to communications technology: Theocracy Watch. Our power lies in the fact that we are providing information that makes sense out of the world around us and we work hard to re-frame the debate on these issues. Our web site gets thousands and thousands of hits every day. And our DVD’s are getting duplicated, passed around and played on public access television stations.

I’m convinced that most people would not support a dominionist agenda if they understood it. Their candidates have to use stealth. I believe the majority of people in this country value its diversity, and will make good political choices when they are informed.

We’ll conclude with a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote when he was President of the United States to explain the meaning of the First Amendment. He wrote this letter to the Danbury Baptist Association because the Baptists along with the evangelicals were strong supporters of a separation of church and state. “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God . . . I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”